Best of '05

Device of the Year


Puzzle of the Year

Addiction of the Year

Event of the Year

Jam of the Year

Performance of the Year

TV Series of the Year

Game of the Year

Photo of the Year

Film of the Year

Website of the Year


Album of the Year

Reunion...in Pictures

Us, Then...And now...

Good times...

Oh My Pod

This Christmas, I got the one thing I NEVER thought I could possibly get. A new iPod. Bear in mind that my previous iPod was three months old. Now this, my fifth iPod to date, has inspired me to go through the history of my precious Pods, for they have been a significant part of my life for quite some time.

My first iPod was the first generation iPod. It was only available for Mac, so, naturally, I was the only person I knew with one. This was sophomore year of high school. I had just moved to Maryland from Indianapolis, and I wanted to make some kind of impression, so I touted the white wonder around school. I put it in my shirt pocket (Catholic school = uniforms) when I wasn't using it, so people would see it sticking out ever so slightly but just enough to arouse their interest. Of course, every time I went to my locker and bent over, the iPod would fall out on to the floor....

I'm not exactly sure what my first iPod did to my reputation. I think it made people generally think I was rich and a bit nerdy. At the same time, it made them quite envious, which I thought was the greatest thing ever... at the time. After less than a year, the iPod died, probably from all the falls. It just couldn't take any more. R.I.P.

My second iPod was also the first generation. The Pod was still a Mac only product, but the PC transition and, therefore, the exponential growth in popularity, would begin. Soon after I purchased the Pod, the second generation, which was the first hybrid, made its debut, and I was pissed. But still, very few people had an iPod, and I felt quite special through the rest of high school. This iPod lasted for a few years before gradually wasting away and eventually dying. I was less upset when this iPod passed because I had gotten my first cell phone. Yes, I was one of the few people who had their first (and second) iPod before their first cell.

I didn't get my third iPod until college. It was the third generation iPod with the cool but annoying touch-sensitive "buttons". I remember being amazed by its thinness. It had to be half the size of the previous model. By the time I got this iPod, everyone had an iPod. Walking through Cal is like being in a giant iPod ad. Everyone has one, from SoCal yuppies to nerdy asians to GBC staff. It's, like, the wave of the future or something....

Anyway, my third gen iPod inspired me to make an iPod documentary for my film class, showing how the iPod influences our daily lives and such. It wasn't a very good documentary.... The third iPod started acting weird after about a year, but it was still usable for a long time. Eventually, it just stopped charging and, rather than just replace the battery, I decided it was best to get the next generation.

My fourth iPod was a birthday present to myself. I got it two months before the announcement of the 5th gen video iPod. It was the first iPod in which I had enough space to fit all my music (5500 songs at present). I could also put my pictures and schedule on it, as well as files from other computers, which came in handy for reasons I won't go into right now.

Two months after I got the Pod, an incident that has come to be known as The Incident happened. Walking to CKC from class one day, I didn't notice the six thuggish black guys approach me from behind. Luckily for me, however, they were idiots. The initial strike was the only damaging blow. Two busted lips is no joke. But the subsequent kicks once I'd fallen to the ground were harmless. In addition to being stupid, they were also slow. I got up and ran towards the CKC bus stop, where a dozen Cal students were watching the whole thing. The thugs couldn't catch up. During The Incident, I had, on my person, about $600 worth of stuff, and they managed to take... my backpack. It was later found by the police. Anyway, The Incident did some damage to the iPod, causing the display to become faded and wrecking the headphones. But it was still usable. Then, one beautiful Christmas morning, I unwrapped a gift from my father only to find...

A brand-new fifth-generation iPod.

The problem is, this iPod had half the capacity of my previous Pod. So I've decided to sell it AND the previous to get a better fifth-gen.

Anyone interested in a 30 GB fifth-gen for $250, IM me. Cal and MD/DC people only.
Also IM if you're interested in a 60 GB fourth-gen for $150.

=)

Tis the Season

The Hawaii trip was canceled, BUT I still had a great Christmas in the Windy City. Arriving in Chicago, the outside temperature was a measly -9 degrees. Luckily, I had on six layers above the belt. However, jeans, which are the only kind of pants I wear casually, don't fare too well in sub-zero temperatures. And neither do gloveless hands. Needless to say, I discovered these facts the hard way. From the next day on, I wore pajama pants under the jeans. I would've been ok with the weather had it snowed, but it didn't, so I was really pissed. All of the above describes things that have happened annually for a number years, yet clearly I still haven't acclimated myself to the urban tundra that is Chi-Town.

The only thing worse than the weather in Chicago were the shenanigans of T&M. T is my brother. M is my cousin. Now, my brother and I have our quarrels and whatnot, probably far more than most siblings, but we USUALLY get along ok nonetheless. But M provokes T. Upon arriving at M's family's house, T started his East Coast verbiage immediately, referring to me as the following, which are conveniently defined below, since God knows NO ONE outside of DC is aware of these terms:

Bama: originally meant to describe a person with no or very little fashion sense; a poor dresser; the term has since been bastardized by T to be synonymous with the word "loser"

Mark: originally meant to be a synonym of the term "bitch", referring exclusively to males; occasionally, the term was synonymous with the word "punk" in its original prison-borne meaning; the term has since been bastardized by T to be synonymous with the word "idiot"

Swan: no idea what this means; possibly synonymous with "fag", given the context

One would think that extended use of these terms against me by my dear brother T would have an effect on me, but consider this. T, upon hearing the word "spontaneity" on TV, claimed that "that nigga just made up a word" and M, after using the word "sophisticated", claimed "See I used a smart word. Sophisticated." M and T are 17 and 18, respectively.

There was one thing more annoying than T&M during this vacation. The Cal questions. When I had been at my friend's house earlier, his guests made all the predictable comments. "I hear it's VERY liberal there." "Are there really that many asians?" and my favorite "What's Cal? OH, UC Berkeley. Why do you call it Cal?" The Cal questions were just as prevalent in Chicago, albeit a bit Black-er, if you know what I mean.... "There aint NO black chicks at that school, are there?" "Berkeley? You must have an asian girlfriend, huh? Now don't get all rice-lovin' me!" "That racist school. You need to go to Howard." Yes, the Cal questions and comments were quite irritating, but they were also very entertaining. And even when I tried to say "It's a Top 20 school" in Cal's defense, someone would always know off-hand that it was TIED at 20 with some other school. Or they would call whoever rates the schools racist.

Though I spent the first part of Christmas morning alone in a living room, the second part sleeping, and the rest watching some bad movie, the rest of the day was great. The big family dinner was like a reunion, where the whole family, including my grandmother's nine children, their children, and their children's children, would gather to have a huge feast.

The food












Me, my bro, and a few cousins












Grandma and others












Me and my uncle












It was at this event that I realized I hadn't had home-cooked AA-style food in a VERY long time. Too long. Afterwards, I kicked my parents' and relatives asses, all of whom are over the age of 50, in Boggle, an addictive word game. I chose to bask in victory rather than take note of the fact that I was the only one who wasn't drunk on egg nog.

Genesis

At this point, it's widely known that I'm generally late to jump on the various internet-related bandwagons rolling around, such as the ever-popular Facebook and similar MySpace. Blogging is no exception. Some may think that Blogger's sudden arousal of my interest is due strictly to envy, as everyone and their grandma uses some sort of blogging or blog-like service like Xanga or Live Journal. But I assure those some that this isn't the case. As entertainingly typical as it would be for me to say "I'm blogging now so I can be better than Tyler!", the reality of my newfound interest is far MORE interesting and far less trite.

As pretentious as it may sound, I feel as if I've reached an important but dangerously precarious point in my life, in which perceptions of me will change and the appeal of my persona will hang delicately in the balance. It will either play out like the season finale of a great drama or like the finale of a Shakespeare tragedy. Time will tell.

Yes, I'm being cryptic in some ways, facetious in others, and theatrical on others still, but this is the truth, as it will come to be more fully realized as Strobe Flier, along with Robert's Life, grows and evolves into some sort of inevitably enigmatic clarity.

Till then....